The Victorious opposition

He ended just as the light went red. This wasn't one of his long speeches, only a little one to remind people that he'd got back two of the states the Whigs had lost. He stood up, stretched, and left the studio.

As always, Saul Goldman waited for him outside in the hallway. "Good speech, Mr. President," the director of communications said. "I don't think you can make a bad one."

"Thanks, Saul," Featherston answered. "We have a lot of things to take care of over the next few weeks. You've got the incident simmering?"

"Oh, yes." The little Jew nodded. "We'll have something worked up if they don't take care of things for us. They're liable to, you know."

Jake nodded. "Hell, of course I know. But we'll be able to get the story out the way we want it if it's our incident to begin with."

Bodyguards came up alongside of Saul Goldman. Goldman nodded to them in an absent-minded way. He didn't take security as seriously as he should have. Of course, nobody was gu

The guards led him out into the street. They spread out before he got into his new armored limousine. With Virgil Joyner shot dead, his driver was new, too. He missed Virgil. He missed anybody who'd known him in the old days and stuck with him through thick and thin. Harold Stowe, the new man, was probably a better driver than Joyner had been. Jake didn't care. The man was-and acted like-a servant, not a drinking buddy.

"Back to the Gray House, Harold," Featherston said. Harold. He sighed to himself. Stowe didn't even go by Hal or Hank or anything interesting.

"Right, Mr. President," the driver said, and put the limousine in gear. Jake sighed again, a little louder this time. Virgil Joyner had called him Sarge. He'd had the right, too. Not many people did, not any more.

Climbing Shockoe Hill was hard work for the heavy limousine. There'd been an ice storm the night before. Despite rock salt on the road, the going was still slippery. They crawled to the top in first gear.

When he strode back into the presidential residence, his secretary met him just inside the door. "You know you're scheduled to meet with Lieutenant General Forrest in ten minutes, don't you, sir?" she said, as if sure he'd forgotten.

"Yes, Lulu, I do know that," he said. "Let me go to the office and look at a couple of things, and I'll be ready for him."

An officer named Nathan Bedford Forrest III should have raised Featherston's hackles. He'd campaigned against all the Juniors and IIIs and even VIs who clung to power in the CSA by virtue of what their ancestors had done, and who hadn't done anything much on their own. But, for one thing, the first Nathan Bedford Forrest had been as much of a self-made son of a bitch as Jake was, and he'd been proud of it, too. And, for another, his great-grandson wasn't a Great War General Staff relic. He'd been too young even to fight in the trenches from 1914 to 1917. He was a hell of a soldier now, though, with notions of how to use barrels as radical as his illustrious ancestor's ideas about horses. Featherston liked the way he thought.

At the moment, though, Forrest looked worried. "Sir, if the Yankees decide to jump us for moving troops into Kentucky and west Texas"-he wouldn't call it Houston, refusing to recognize the validity of the name-"they'll whip us. They can do it. If you don't see that, you'll land the country in a hell of a mess."

"I never said they couldn't," Featherston answered. "But they won't."

Nathan Bedford Forrest III looked exasperated. The first officer to bear the name had been a rawboned man who looked a bit like Jake Featherston. His descendant had a rounder face, though he kept his great-grandfather's dangerous eyes. They looked all the more dangerous when he glowered. "Why won't they? You've promised to keep those states demilitarized, and you're going back on your solemn word. What better excuse do they need?"

"If they attack me for moving my men into my states, they've got a war on their hands," Jake said calmly. "I'm telling you, General, they don't have the stomach for it."

"And I'm telling you, Mr. President, you'll take the country down in ruins if you're wrong." The first Nathan Bedford Forrest had had a reputation for speaking his mind. His great-grandson took after him.

"To hell with the country," Featherston said. Nathan Bedford Forrest III gasped. Jake went on, "I've got twenty dollars of my own money against twenty dollars of yours, General. The damnyankees won't move."

Forrest frowned. "You sound mighty damn sure of yourself, Mr. President."

"I am mighty damn sure of myself," Jake Featherston answered. "That's my job. Suppose you let me tend to it while you tend to yours."

"I am tending to my job," Nathan Bedford Forrest III said. "If I didn't point out to you that we're liable to have a problem here, I wouldn't be tending to it. The damnyankees outweigh us. They're always going to outweigh us. Remember how much trouble the Germans had against the Tsar's armies in the Great War? That wasn't because one Russian was as good a soldier as one German. It was because there were a hell of a lot of Russians. There are a hell of a lot of soldiers in the USA, too."

Jake Featherston nodded. "They'll be able to outnumber us, like you said. That means we'll just have to outquick 'em. You going to tell me we can't do that?" His voice developed a hard and ugly rasp. If General Forrest was going to tell him something along those lines, he'd be sorry.

"No, sir." Forrest didn't try. "We've got the airplanes, and we've got the barrels, and we've got the trucks, too. We'll run 'em ragged." Like Jake, like most of the Confederates who were really involved with them, he called barrels by the name they had in the USA. Some of the men who'd done their service well away from the trenches still used the British name instead: tanks. Featherston found that a useless affectation. But the general wasn't through, for he added, "If there is a war, sir, we'd better win it pretty damn fast. If we don't, we've got troubles. They're bigger than we are, like I say, and they can take more punishment. We don't want to get into a slugging match with them. Do you hear what I'm saying?"

"I hear you," Jake said coldly. "You make yourself very plain."

"Good. That's good. I want you to understand me," Nathan Bedford Forrest III said. "If I have a choice, I'd just as soon see us not have a war at all. Three years of the last one should have been enough to satisfy us for the rest of our days."

Three years of war hadn't been enough to satisfy Jake Featherston. He'd fought with undiminished hatred from begi

Nathan Bedford Forrest III looked back at him. "Oh, that's plain enough," he answered. "But if you're being a damn fool, sir, don't you think somebody has the duty to come out and tell you so?"

"People told me that before I got Kentucky and Houston back," Jake said in a low, furious voice. "Was I right, or were they? People told me that when I brought dams and electricity into the Te